USTC Open Day 2016 is May. 14 to 15, themed “Science and Technology Innovation leads future dreams”. Each day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Citizens all over China are welcomed here to enjoy a feast in science and technology.
The east & west campus and Institutes of Advanced Technology are available this year. The open sites include SKLFS (State Key Laboratory of Fire Science), NSRL (National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory), Key Laboratory of galactic cosmology, Synchrotron Radiation State Laboratory, USTC museum and etc. At each site volunteers, mainly students offers interpret and other services to all the tourists. During the activity, a large number of visitors came, most of whom are citizens from local province. Many schools organized students here as a spring tour, parents bringing their children are also easy to seen on campus.
At the main entrance, Volunteers are handing out guidebooks to all the tourists and various souvenirs are available to remember the brilliant public science education tour provided by USTC.
The School of Humanities and Social Science holds their activities at Modern Art Center. Mysterious magnetic fluid, pictures and videos of beautiful math have caught over 1160 people’s eyes up to 14:30 on the first day of the Science and Technology Week. However, the best received activity here is no doubt augmented reality interaction, in which tourists get the chance to play with a regular polygon through AR. Volunteers here said it’s a good idea to apply AR to providing participants with intuitive understandings of abstract science concepts, thus promoting science popularization.
Sites closely connected to people’s daily lives are usually crowded, such as the Teaching Administration building where Earth and Space Sciences prepared scientific knowledge about earthquakes. A volunteer is patiently explaining to tourists how earthquakes come into being. Even a little boy at Grade 5 seems to understand his approachable interpret, nodding his head now and then. When asked what he learned today, the boy told out the three dos and don’ts in face of an earthquake. Considering the hot weather, watermelons and water are also prepared for children at the entrance of the building.
The most popular and educative theme at is 3D Printing technology. Over 20 classes from primary schools to high schools are organized to experience the charm of 3D printing at the School of Mathematical Sciences and the School of Engineer Science,. Visitors are interested by how the machine print plastic into any shape the operator wanted and questions are raised one after another from how the system recognizes whatt’s going to print to how fluid can be printed into solid shape. What fascinated kids most is 3D drawing. 5 kids are making all these delicate figures such as Eiffel Tower, butterflies by themselves with 3D pens. A volunteer from Chuangke told us USTC has been in cooperation with Hefei Abaci Science & Technology Co. Ltd to promote applications of 3D technology into modern education, and one of their product-3D pen has been in use in over 10 schools in An Hui Province alone.
USTC also aims to inform the public of the latest development in science and technology. In USTC Museum, visitors can learn about newest progress in Quantum physics and quantum information communication made by USTC. In the exhibition of the North and South Pole, visitors can leave messages on a notebook to record their thoughts after the tour. A girl in middle school showed her concern in climate change and decided to protect our planet, many students also wrote down their hope to study in USTC in the future.
In the west campus, most visitors are middle school and high school students. They learn something significant about scientific attitude of think and try it more independently. Volunteers in the School of Information Science teach them to DIY a disk. In the School of Engineering Sciences volunteers guide them to make a simple robot. Learners think hard and ask many questions. They feel proud of the achievement by themselves and admire smart “teachers” here. Above all, finding science and technology is so close makes them exciting.
Science is not only close but also beautiful. Seniors in the School of Life Sciences introduce splendid pictures about macromolecules through microscope. They also help kids to make vein bookmarks. Meanwhile, freshmen in the School of Chemistry and Material Sciences use cabbage as acid-base indicator creating a series of amazing color. Science will lead you to find out many magical scenes.
Science and technology affects daily life and designs the future. Tourists gather in the hall of the School of Computer Science and Technology where people can experience NFC RISK—a trap to steal money and information from personal account. The lecture can help raise public awareness of information secure when daily life link closely with the IT technology. People line up before the international service robots “Neo” who can communicate fluently with people and do housework accurately.
When asking about the tour, many kids decide to come again next year, as to middle school students, they will work harder so that they can further study here.
Open Day came to its successful end at 5 p.m. on May 15th, 2016. USTC has been and will always be dedicated to do its share in Science popularization.
(GUO Jianjian, HUANG Danning, USTC News Center)
